Our church has been in a sermon series entitled, "At the Movies" for the past 8 weeks. It has been a fun series to preach and each week, it seems that God has given us a unique word for our church. This week's movie was Top Gun: Maverick.
I remember when the first Top Gun movie came out. I was in Middle School and it seemed like everyone wanted to be Maverick and Goose. I can't remember how many times I saw people high five one another and yell out "Turn and Burn" or "I feel the need, the need for speed." Yeh, some of you are my age and remember those moments too. And don't forget that everyone started wearing leather bomber jackets and Raybans too. It was just part of it.
When they started advertising the new Top Gun movie, those of us that belonged to that generation couldn't wait. We made that movie a box office smash! And to be honest, I don't know if it was the nostalgia or what, but it lived up to the hype.
Top Gun: Maverick, picks up on the life of Pete Mitchell (Maverick) some 30 years after the first movie. The truth is, it's been almost 40 years since the movie came out. We see things have not gone well for him and that he is still getting into a lot of trouble by doing things that military simply won't accept.
At the beginning of the movie though, there is a moment, a phrase that really jumped out to me. An admiral looks at Maverick and says, "Your kind is heading for extinction" and Maverick's response is "Maybe so Sir, but not today."
As I have said every week of this series, we can see spiritual parallels from the movies and the bible. It's really not that far of a jump. Jesus taught in parables so that those who were uneducated could grasp complex spiritual ideas. Movies are storytelling with moving pictures. We can physically see the story unfold in front of us.
Top Gun is a real thing. It is a combat aviation school designed to teach the best pilots how to be better. These pilots are considered to be the best of the best, but they don't have all the skills that they need. So they will take them into training to learn to be better.
Church is very much like Top Gun School. It should take those of us that are on our spiritual journey and make us better. Can you be a Christian and not go to church, I'm sure you could...but why would you want to? The church is a training ground. You are either learning or teaching others to be better equipped. At its basic level, the role of a pastor is to be a trainer. They should train us up for the work of the ministry.
Each one of us has been created for "Good works" (Ephesians 2:10). These things have been laid out before the foundation of the Earth. Many times we miss these works that God has set before us because we have become just readers and hearers of the word (James 1:22-25), but we don't follow through to do those things.
One of my favorite scenes in the movie is actually when Maverick is introduced to all the Top Gun pilots. He shows them the manual to the F-18 Fighter Jet. He tells them that you are expected to know all of these things frontwards and backwards. Of course, the pilots say they do. But then he goes one step further. He says, so does your enemy. They know the capabilities of this plane. But what they don't know is how far you are willing to take it.
The same is true for the enemy of your soul. He knows the bible better than you do. Even if you memorized every verse from front to back, he still knows it better. But he what doesn't know is how far you are willing to go to live it out. He doesn't know your limits.
Too many times, we miss our opportunities spiritually because we are not willing to take to the limit. We miss the moments that God designed us for. Here are a few reasons that we miss our moments...
1. We focus too much on OUR PAST
I believe that one of the things that keeps us from experiencing God’s best for our lives today, is our image of who we were yesterday. It’s not just the negative things that will keep you from walking in your calling and the greater purpose that God has for your life…it is the positive things that we encountered in the past as well.
You can get stuck in yesterday and miss God's best for you today. The Apostle Paul, who wrote a great deal of the New Testament, even said you have to forget those past things to get to your future. (Philippians 3:13-14)
To grow, you have to forget the past. You have to look forward to what is in front of you. For us as a new church, some of that is about letting go of what we knew in the past about how church works and our roles within the church.
But sometimes the difficulty in moving to the Greater is not our past, but our perceived qualifications.
2. We have to understand it's not about OUR QUALIFICATIONS
As Christians, it's easy to think that it's all about us. But your abilities are not all that important. Or let me say it this way. Your ability is not as important as your availability.
The truth is your ability may hamper what God wants to do in your life. Because the ability that God needs is not found in your learning or even timing in the church. It is found in your availability. God’s grace works out best in weak and imperfect people. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)
God doesn’t called the qualified, he will qualify the called. It's the moment that you think that you are the answer and God is not, that things will go haywire. You are an instrument to be used by the Lord.
Saint Francis Assisi prayed this, “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy."
That should be the cry of every Christian! No matter what we think our ability is, we should cry out to God to make us an instrument that He can use to make a difference in this world. You don't have to be perfect for God to use you.
Moses was used by God in spite of his limitations.
David was used by God in spite of his failures and place in the family.
You can be used by God in spite of how you see yourself in light of your qualifications and your past.
You can have the let go of your past, and let go of your qualifications, but there is still one other thing that has to happen…that comes down to your outlook.
3. We have to get OUR OUTLOOK focused right.
I want you to understand something very simple. Your fight will encourage others to fight. You victory is not just for you, but it's for those that are watching you. Your outlook is all about how you see yourself in light of eternity. Our momentary struggles are just that…momentary.
Many times we struggle with our outlook because we think the Christian life would be like the plot of a Hallmark Movie. I tell my wife that I think that every Hallmark movie has the same plot line. Somebody from a big city comes to a small town, encounters some reason that Christmas will change their lives. Ends up finding love and lives happily ever after.
In our faith walk, we think that the Hallmark version of our Christian walk look like:
There’s a battle
Seek God
Pray and Stand
Battle goes away.
That’s not how it works. It’s not what the battlefield looks like. In spiritual battles, you will sometimes fight one battle just enter a new battlefield right afterwards. In the movie, Maverick wins one fight, just to enter into a new one. Every time you think that he has got to the end, something happens again. The same is true for your life.
But our outlook has to be on God. Because He is the one that fights our battles for us. (2 Chronicles 20:15, Exodus 14:13-14) When your outlook is one that sees the fight before it starts and understands that God is the one that will battle for you...it changes everything.
Today, as you read this, you may be in the midst of a battle. Understand something, God is in it with you. And when He is in something, He's in it to win it!
Blessings,
PJ